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Turf tightened, but two giants first out of gate in London big-box building rush 0

A view looking northeast toward London from Lambeth, a rural zone that falls into the city’s Southwest Area Plan. Under a new policy, segments of Wonderland Road will become areas designated for all types of development. (CRAIG GLOVER, The London Free Press)

The ink barely dry on new rules allowing it, two developers are already working to turn London’s largest tract of raw land into a sprawling commercial and residential development.

The builder for retail giant Walmart, and London’s York Development Group, are lined up to build in the so-called Southwest Area Plan, in the Exeter and Wonderland roads area, after the city recently got the green light for development from the Ontario Municipal Board.

“It doesn’t surprise me we are seeing development move forward very quickly — there’s a lot of pent-up demand for that area,” said Mayor Joni Baechler.

York is doing the legwork for a 650,000-sq.-ft. project — a mix of office, retail and residential — on 24 hectares and hopes to break ground in about a year.

“It is a significant investment and the trickle-down effect is immense,” York president Ali Soufan said Wednesday.

“It makes us look like a city on the move,” he said.

SmartCentres, Walmart’s developer, has also been approved to build but the land still must be rezoned.

The OMB ruling on the future of the coveted area, once touted by city planners as a new commercial gateway for the Wonderland corridor, cleared the final obstacles for development and York and SmartCentres were first out of the gate.

“I think it has created a marketplace — I am content with the decision,” Soufan said.

The OMB, however, limited commercial development in the zone to 1 million sq. ft. — less than half what city council finally approved, which at 2.6 million sq. ft. was 13 times more than originally planned. A southerly extension was added at the last minute by council, a move that pleased some developers but angered others.

With 25 objections to the plan council approved, it took a weeks-long OMB hearing to iron it out all out.

Besides capping commercial development, the board agreed to extend the development area development area south along Wonderland from Southdale Rd. to Hamlyn St. — farther than the Exeter Rd. limit some had argued for.

The board also overturned proposals for a 50-metre setback for development from Dingman Creek and 30 m from other waterways, leaving those limits to case-by-case environmental assessments.

Baechler said she’s not happy it took so long, but the OMB ruling “seems to be a reasonable outcome with what council intended” for the area.

“I am never happy when a plan that has taken a year and a half of serious consultation is appealed to the OMB,” she said. “I don’t like a quasi-judicial tribunal making decisions about the city.”

The decision to let environmental assessments dictate setbacks from waterways could prove contentious, since Lambeth-area residents wanted a wide green space around waterways — not big-box stores pushed up against them.